Insurance Technology Featured Article

Data Breach at Nationwide Insurance Affects More Than 1.1M People

Nationwide Mutual Insurance recently announced that due to the cyber attack from October 3 on its computer network, personal information of more than 1.1 million people has been affected.

The data breach on the network, which is incidentally also shared by Allied Insurance, has compromised data including names, birth dates, social security numbers and driver’s license numbers of scores of customers looking for insurance quotes.

As a way to provide some relief and compensation for the incident, the company is sending notification letters to the affected customers and will provide them with free credit monitoring and identity theft protection for up to a year.

So far, Nationwide is not aware of any misuse of the compromised information.

The company said that on October 3, 2012, a part of its computer network was criminally intruded upon by a criminal perpetrator whose identification is yet to be ascertained. The company learned about the attack the very same day and was prompt in taking immediate steps to curtail and address the breach.

An investigation of the attack was initiated by Nationwide on October 16, 2012, during which it found that some personal information was compromised by the criminal perpetrator. On November 2, 2012, the company received confirmation of the identities and addresses of the customers whose data was compromised. While investigation on the incident is still underway, it has been established that information pertaining to customers’ names and Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers and dates of birth – as well as details on marital status, gender and occupation, and address of employer – may have also been vulnerable.

The company, however, specified that there is no evidence of any misuse.

The affected data was analyzed by Nationwide and a third-party expert, which enabled the quick identification of those customers whose personal information was compromised in the attack. Law enforcement agencies are currently investigating the breach.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO Miami 2013, Jan 29- Feb. 1 in Miami, Florida. Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO (News - Alert). Follow us on Twitter.